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Labor Systems
What is a labor system? A commune's labor system is how it organizes and accounts for the labor of its members. Labor systems help all tasks necessary to a community's functioning get done, determine what kinds of work are defined as "valuable", and keep members accountable in their labor contribution to the community. Philosophy A community's labor system frames it's relationship to labor and determines what kind of labor is possible within the community. When designing a labor system, it's important to keep in mind the relationship members of the community want to have to their labor and what they would like to accomplish with their labor system. There are many philosophical aspects of labor to keep in mind when creating a labor system. For example, how can a labor system address discrimination and inequality present in the larger culture? How can it encourage and support members in taking on gender atypical jobs? How can it give value to types of work that are undervalued in the larger culture? Then there are questions of how to balance the various needs of members within a labor system. How can the labor system encourage members to invest in themselves? What is the balance of personal needs with community needs? How do we invest in the collective good without burning ourselves out? What is the balance of doing what we love, doing what we're good at, and doing what needs to be done? Next, there are questions of how a labor system can support experimentation and risk taking. How can we allow for members to pursue their ideas and passions? How is the stress, risk and responsibility of creating a new community business supported and shared, especially considering that even successful businesses require investment with little return up front? The particular set of philosophical considerations when creating a labor system may vary for each group, but some concerns are more or less universal? What work is considered valuable? How much will members work? How will labor be organized? When do members get to take a vacation? The rest of this article will take a closer look at these and other relevant considerations when creating a labor system. What work needs to be done? What work is considered valuable? Labor can take many forms, only one of which is income producing labor. Although income production is important, with earned money paying for the needs of community members, many others types of work are essential, or at least beneficial to the functioning of a commune and its members' quality of life. The members of each community need to consider which work they want to prioritize and what types of labor they consider valuable. Below is a non-exhaustive list of tasks that may be considered valuable labor in a commune: * Income producing work ** Working a paid job ** Working in a community-owned business ** Entrepreneurialism - starting a commune owned business * Domestic work (aka the labor of reproduction) ** Repair and maintenance ** Food prep, cooking, food preservation ** Cleaning ** Tending to a fire used for heat ** Restocking supplies/shopping ** Childcare ** Laundry ** Organizing spaces ** Beautification ** Growing food and processing it ** Music, performance, party planning/prep/cleanup * Administrative work ** Answering phones and relaying communication ** Accounting ** Proposal and policy work ** Meetings ** Planning * Care taking work ** Caring for other communards' physical health (including elders) ** Caring for other communards' mental health ** Caring for family or friends ** Caring for your own physical and mental health * Emotional work ** Counseling ** Mediation ** Intervention ** Advocacy * Activist/Advocacy/Organizing/Charitable work ** Volunteering for a charitable or political organization ** Organizing a social or political campaign ** Public speaking about egalitarianism and promotion of the income sharing model * Self Improvement ** Arts and crafts (for the revolution) ** Education/Training ** Exercise How much should communards work? In addition to deciding what work should be prioritized and treated as valuable, members of a commune need to determine how much work they will expect of themselves and each other. A labor system must ensure that all the community's work gets done, while also ensuring members do not get burnt out and have enough time for leisure and personal pursuits. A commune's ultimate purpose is to create a good life for its members, one that engages and challenges them without overtaxing them. There are different ways to ask the question "how much should we work?": * How many hours of labor should members do? How much vacation should they get from that labor requirement? When can they seek exemptions from that labor requirement? What's a fair share, in terms of hours? * How much unpleasant or unpopular work should members do? How much pleasant or popular work should members do? What's a fair share, in terms of doing the tasks that are helpful, but not necessarily pleasant? * How much responsibility should members take? Should they simply perform the day to day tasks, or should they be taking part in organizing those tasks? * What is a reasonable work-life balance for members to seek? How hard should they push themselves? Each of these ways of asking the question points to a different aspect of what "work" is. Work is contributing a certain amount of time. It is doing what is unpleasant, but necessary. It is making difficult (physical, mental, emotional) effort. It is contributing our skills and knowledge. It is taking ownership. Ways to measure labor Depending on a community's needs and it's agreed upon concept of "work," there are different ways to measure the labor that each member contributes. * '''Hours: '''Each member is expected to do a certain number of hours of work each week (or other chosen period of time). These hours can be recorded, or performed on the honor system. If hours are on the honor system, it is helpful to have regular check-ins about how work is going or find some other way to empower community members to bring it up when it feels like someone is is contributing too little (or too much). * '''Responsibilities: '''Each member takes on a certain number of "jobs" they are responsible for, such that they have enough responsibility to keep them occupied. The number of responsibilities each member takes is generally variable, according to the size of each responsibility. * '''Effort: '''A community's labor agreement can be open, simply requiring that remembers "work full time" or generally "keep themselves occupied and engaged," without keeping track of hours or assigning them specific responsibilities. Such agreements work best with regular check ins, for members to clarify how they feel about the amount of work they are taking on and the amount they see others taking on. Managing over and under-working It's important to consider appropriate responses when a member is unbalanced in their work contribution. A labor should have some flexibility for members that are comfortable with different levels of contribution and responsibility, but it must also establish some level of healthy balance that avoids overworking and buring out members, as well as a free riding. Responsibility should be distributed so that members willing to overwork themselves don't, and accountability systems are needed so that members are accountable to their fair share of labor. Under-working When concerned that a member might not be doing their fair share, where does accountability come from? If the commune tracks labor hours, it should be clear when someone is working less than others. Communes not tracking labor will need to have regular labor check ins or some other available process as opportunities to raise concerns. When it's realized that someone is not contributing as much as expected, what is the response? Do other community members share their concerns, helping them see the affect they have on others? Are they asked about their own experience and mental/emotional/physical health so that they can be given what they need to contribute? At what point does the response to an insufficient labor contribution become punitive, and what are the punitive measures? Do members not contributing fairly lose certain privileges? Are they required to make an agreement to contribute more? Are they asked to leave the community? Over-working Some members may work more than is healthy and sustainable for them. How is this problem identified and addressed when it occurs, or prevented from happening in the first place? As with the problem of under-working, regular labor check ins are a useful opportunity for members to speak up if they are feeling overtaxed or to raise concern that another might be overtaxed. When a member is working themself too hard, how can some of their responsibility be redistributed so that they can step back and take care of themself? Prioritizing and organizing labor Prioritizing Although a great range of work may be of value to a commune, there is usually some work that is more essential to the community's functioning than other work. For example, growing food may be more important than having beautiful ornamental gardens; making enough money to meet everyone's needs may be more important than constructing a new building for the community, etc. Members of a commune must examine what needs to be done, how much effort various tasks require, and how much effort they have available, then prioritize accordingly. It's useful to periodically reexamine what energy is available and what the most critical tasks are, then adjust priorities. Regular revaluation of priorities can occur on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis, depending on the scale of time involved in what is being examined. As examples, if we seem short on firewood, we could chop more this week; if spring is coming, we can set a time this month to plan our garden; if we'd like to expand the community, we can start designing a building and gradually put aside the money and time to build it. Work that is essential to the functioning of the community takes top priority- every member must be successfully fed, housed, clothed and have access to health care. If all essentials are covered, members can then find other ways to enrich their own lives, build more sustainable infrastructure, perform service outside the community, or some combination of these and other projects, depending on agreed upon priorities. Prioritizing by numbers: labor budgeting Instead of prioritizing important labor in a general sense, community members can "budget" labor, making numerical estimates about how much time tasks take and how much time members can collectively contribute, striving to balance hours required with hours available. When labor is budgeted, communards can decide how many hours over the course of a year (or other time frame) they will spend working on each task or project, effectively prioritizing tasks numerically. However, labor budgeting will also require a labor accounting system that keeps track of hours worked in each area over the course of a budgeting period, to ensure that performed labor is consistent with the agreed upon plan. Organizing Once work is prioritized, some system will be needed to ensure that work performed is consistent with agreed upon priorities and that all the necessary and desired work receives attention. Some systems used for this are relatively structured, distributing work with a bureaucratic system, while others are more flexible, allowing members to do whatever work they are most called to or see as most important, so long as no major needs are going unmet. Bureaucratic systems tend to be more conservative, making sure that labor with top priority is seen to first, while less strictly organized systems tend to leave more room for creativity, pursuit of personal interests, and risk taking on new projects. There are many ways to organize labor in a commune, and each community should find a system that works well for them, rather than imposing one that does not fit. A non-exhaustive list of systems communes use to organize their labor follows. These systems are not mutually exclusive, and many can be used in combination with others. Sign-Up One of the simplest ways to organize labor is to distribute it on a volunteer basis to those who have signed up for it. Once it's been determined what tasks need to be done, they can be posted in a public place for members to sign up for. Sign up could be on paper, on a chalk or dry erase board, online, in list format, in grid format, or in any other convenient form. There could be a minimum number of tasks that each member is expected to sign up for, though many may choose to sign up for more. The size of each task could also be quantified with a certain number of "points", with each member expected to sign up for a certain number of points worth of tasks. Members may change their sets of tasks on some regular interval, or simply remove their name when they are no longer interested in that task, so that another may sign up. Rota Some tasks can be assigned to members on a rotating basis, such that members switch tasks on a regular basis, eventually rotating through the entire set of tasks. Such a system is called a "rota." For example, a member might be responsible for cleaning a bathroom one week, then the living room the next, then the yard the week after. There are many ways to organize a rota, one of the simplest being a rotating wheel. Tasks can be written on the wheel, and each matched to a member's stationary name on the outer edge. As tasks rotate, the wheel is turned, matching each member's name to a new task. The jobs best suited to a rota are easily performed by any member on the rota, and roughly equivalent to one another in size of task. Cleaning chores are a category of task that is generally well suited to a rota. Managerships Labor can be organized by subdividing it into areas, such as kitchen, garden, housekeeping, a collectively owned business, child care, building construction and maintenance, etc. To ensure that the tasks of each area are adequately seen to, one member can act as the "manager" of each area. It is each managers job to have a sense of what work needs to be done in their area, recruit labor from other members, train other members in the area's various jobs, make decisions and purchases relevant to their area, etc. Managers can delegate aspects of their job, like recruiting or training to others, but are ultimately responsible for their area. Used in conjunction with labor budgeting, managers keep track of how many hours are worked in their area, trying to keep within the agreed upon number of hours. Labor Assigning One way to ensure all the community's important tasks are done is by scheduling members to do them. In a labor assigning system, the various tasks that need to be done in any given week are assigned to members by the "labor assigner," who has information for the week about each member's schedule and the schedule of tasks that need to be done. The labor assigner uses all available scheduling information to make sure each tasks has a member assigned to it. Under this system, members typically turn in their schedule for the upcoming week ahead of time so that the labor assigner can schedule them work around their planned schedule. Used in conjunction with managerships, managers submit the jobs they need scheduled in their area for the upcoming week, and the labor assigner ensures they are covered. Used in conjunction with labor budgeting, labor assigning can be used to make sure hours worked in each area matches the agreed upon number of hours for that area. Labor assigning requires that one member spends time each week scheduling work for others, so keep in mind whether this investment of time is worth the organization gained. This system will likely make more sense for large communities than smaller ones, where it is easier to coordinate labor on an individual basis. Training, Institutional Memory, and Passing on Knowledge It's important to have systems in place for maintaining and sharing knowledge, for multiple reasons. For example, training should be available for members who want to learn new skills and take on new types of work. Making training accessible enriches the lives and skill sets of the members receiving it, and provides them with a sense of agency. If no training is available, only those who arrive at the community with a particular skill set can do the work associated with that skill set, which prevents mobility within the community. Making training available is essential to creating an environment where members can learn and grow. Training also helps ensure that replacements for skilled roles are available when experienced members leave the community. If it's known that a member in a position of responsibility will soon leave that role, specifically training a replacement can prevent future struggles when they do leave. As well as passing knowledge from person to person, it can be useful to preserve and pass on knowledge through time, maintaining an "institutional memory." For example, it's helpful to record procedures for skilled work, so that some resource is available to members learning that skill, even if a person to train them is unavailable. Written resources are no replacement for a skilled teacher, but having them available can save struggle if a skilled member unexpectedly leaves and their roles become vacant. It's also useful to historically record different systems that the community has used over time. Procedures for various tasks may change, especially depending on who is in charge of them, and it can be very useful to keep record of past systems used and their results for future reference. When considering a new procedure for a task, such a record can be used to see what systems have already been tried, and how well they worked at the time. Having a record of past systems can prevent a community from "reinventing the wheel" and from reviving systems that have worked poorly in the past without considering why they failed before. Vacation and Leave It's important to allow community members time off, either for leisure or some other reason, such as to pursue a project outsited the community or for a family emergency. Time off can take different forms, such as the examples below. Vacation When a member wants to take time off for liesure, their time off may best be considered as "vacation." Members of a community should consider how much vacation for each member is appropriate, and what restrictions, if any, they want to place on when a member can take vacation. Members might be granted a certain amount of vacation each year, which they can take in either small or large chunks. If a community tracks the hours worked by each member and requires a certain number of hours each week, members might be given the opportunity to build up extra vacation by working more than the minimum requirement and reclaiming those saved hours later. Emergency Leave If something comes up for a member on short notice that requires they take time off, such as a family emergency or mental health crisis, it's helpful to have the flexibility available to let them take time off. Members of a community should consider what conditions warrant an emergency leave and what the process will be for approving emergency time off. Sick Time and Health Leave When a member is sick or having some other health problem, hopefully they can be allowed time off to take care of themself, see a doctor, and heal. Members of a community should consider what conditions warrant sick time or health leave, if there will be any cap on the amount of health leave a member can take in a given amount of time, and what restrictions, if any, health leave comes with. They should also consider building in the flexibility for other members to spend time taking care of those who are sick. Extended Leave Many communes have systems that allow members to leave for an extended period of time without dropping membership. For example, a member way want to take several months off to travel, spend time with family, work on a project outside the community, or just take some time away from the community to avoid burning themselves out. If the community is to allow for extended leave, members will need to discuss how much extended leave will be allowed, what the conditions of the leave will be, whether those on extended leave will continue to recieve certain benefits from the community, such as health insurance, as well as other considersations. It is possible to create multiple categories of extended leave. For example, one type of leave may be available that is akin to temporarily dropping membership with a planned return date, but no benefits from the community during that time, while another may come with benefits from the communtiy, but needs to be applied for and approved, rather than being available to anyone. Labor Systems by Community Key differences between labor systems Major issues labor systems address Ideas for this page * How much labor will be accomplished on the honor system and how much will be recorded? * How will the perception that someone is not doing their fair share be dealt with? * How will labor be delegated? * Accountability systems ** Labor quotas ** Point based labor systems ** Clearnesses/check ins * How will we ensure that all necessary work is covered? ** Keeping things clean, Keeping things in good repair? ** Keeping space, information and documents organized ** Priortizing tasks based on necessity * Valuing both domestic and entrepreneurial labor * Valuing invisible (emotional labor) * Dividing labor based on preferences of members * Enabling members to be creative with their labor * Making unequal contributions equitable